The business that had taken him there had nothing to do with this thing that now interested him, and, if it seems strange to the reader that he should have been strolling along such a thoroughfare alone at that hour of the morning, we need only to say that that is quite another and different story.
What would be your impulse, reader, if you made just such a discovery as this one?
Would it not be to follow the footprints of the man without delay, to find out where he had gone, and with the probability of learning his identity? Probably. And yet Nick Carter knew at once how fruitless such a pursuit would be, since at the next corner toward the direction the man had taken, which was approximately three hundred feet distant, two trolley tracks passed, and it was upon a thoroughfare where there was considerable travel; the tracks left by this strange man, therefore, would be quickly lost at that point, even if he had not succeeded in stepping upon a trolley car, and being borne away in one direction or the other.
Nevertheless, after a moment of thought, Nick ran along the street to that corner, for it had occurred to him that possibly the two, the man and the woman, had come to that point in a motor car, and if that were so there would still be evidence of the fact that such a car had stopped there.
He found that much evidence, too, but no more.
There, beside the curb in this same street upon which the gate was located, were the plain tracks in the snow, showing where the car had pulled out after the man had returned to it, although there were no tracks to show its approach.
And this demonstrated the undoubted fact that the motor had arrived there just about at the beginning of the fall of snow.
Nick remembered that it had continued to snow not more than ten or fifteen minutes at the most, and so it was at once apparent to the detective that the car had arrived at the corner just before the snow began to fall; that the two had remained in the car for several moments thereafter, probably discussing the trip from the car to the house, and had finally left it while the snow was still falling rapidly.
Well, all that was not important save to demonstrate that one of the persons, probably the woman, had not left the car to go to the house willingly, but that persuasion of some sort had been resorted to.
If the car arrived at the corner before the snow began to fall—and Nick knew that it had done so—and if the snow had ceased to fall while they were midway of the distance of three hundred feet, it followed that they must have remained talking together in the car for at least eight minutes, and, at the most, thirteen minutes.